Slashdot videos: Now with more Slashdot!

View

Discuss

Share

We've improved Slashdot's video section; now you can view our video interviews, product close-ups and site visits with all the usual Slashdot options to comment, share, etc. No more walled garden! It's a work in progress -- we hope you'll check it out (Learn more about the recent updates).

That has never happened. Even Google and Facebook took years to get big. Bigger companies could have sued them into the ground if they had their eyes open. Facebook rising to power without Google making a peep was the biggest clue to get out of Google stock ever.

On the other hand, I cannot believe I fell for Google's "Don't Be Evil". While I used to wish for Google Wallet to come out and take over from Evil Paypal, at least, with Paypal, you know what they are doing. Always doing everything they can screw you over.

Google promises you with sweetness and honey... and then betrays you, which is even worse.

And for everyone who says you don't have to use G+ - it is *NOT* G+, it is Google Profile that is the problem, G+ is a component of Google Profile. If your Google Profile is disabled, a shit load of other services are impacted. Yeah, don't use Google. Sure.

The UI was why I switched to Google, and why I switched form Google. The last straw was when they broke the text entry field. On every other text field in the system, up arrow jumps to the start, down arrow jumps to the end. With the Google search field, up arrow does nothing, down arrow invokes some autocompletion crap.

How long before this optional service starts to affect your normal browsing? Want Youtube? Gotta tie it to your Google account. Fine, have a fake one. But all of a sudden, you're required to use your real info. So now you can't access significant portions of the web without being under their umbrella.

If google gets big enough, once it pushes all the alternatives out of the market, or once the alternatives become somewhat irrelevant as to force you into google to be part of the internet "life", then it might become a case for the FTC, or equivalent government entity.

If you used Gmail as your primary mailbox/frontend then it's quite painful. Yeah, it was free, but it's self defeating to punish people for trying out G+. I didn't for exactly this reason: I don't want to play with fire.

Why are there reports that people lost Gmail access from earlier G+ account suspensions? Did Google actually do that, or were people confused somehow?

Google: Gmail suspensions are unrelated to Google+ suspensions. It's possible, and an unfortunate coincidence, for users to have both products suspended at the same time, for separate reasons. Earlier in the summer there was some confusion around SMS verification, which we addressed here.

I am considering "downgrading" my G+ account after reading this but let's not spread any fud here.

Having said that, I'm not quite sure why Google is being such a dick about this real name policy. It's really quite possible that they already know exactly who you are so they have all the info they need, so why give yourself such a bad buzz (pun intended) about this anal-retentive real names policy.

It's really quite possible that they already know exactly who you are so they have all the info they need,

Then they would already have known that Violet Blue was really Violet Blue. This and other cases indicate that they (and Facebook) haven't the foggiest idea exactly (or even approximately) who you are. And don't care.

It's been said before, but it should be repeated again and again: marketing. Not to you, the end user, but to Google's real clients who will fork out good money for fine-grain demographic information. This is Google's means of guaranteeing that the data they're selling is good. Someone who fills out a Facebook account as 'Dik Hz' is giong to know damn well what their ultimate source of spam and bulk mail addressed to Mr. Hertz is, and will be inclined to just toss it at first glance. Mail and e-mail that ar

many people who are online have grown up with there 'always being a high speed internet' that they have easy access to.

many have grown up not knowing what it was like to have privacy due to it being too much physical effort to surveil or too costly. now, with many of the g services its all too easy to have people spy on each other and of course have companies spy on you.

Unlike email where you have an open standard and plenty of provider to chose from, you don't get that choice on Facebook or Google+, either you are with them or you are locked out of that piece of communication infrastructure.

Been using alternatives a while ago. That includes Chrome and a zillion other services Google provides.Google does evil, well duh, like everyone elses before when they become too big. And after that, they usually fall.

So far the only sensitive thing I have seen to counter that is to force the company into separate entities. It's what Samsung does, actually. It's not perfect - at all - but it's an attempt I suppose.

With Google, you don't expect it. My G+ profile was in limbo for over a month and I couldn't even get them to take a look at it - the damned "click this and we will review your name" link even disappeared!

It's like this - when your girlfriend or family spurns you and locks you out - you totally did not expect it, and the impact is far worse.

If you have an emotional attachment to a free online service offered by an advertising agency you have some real problems.

If you're on a social network and have zero emotional attachment to the people you're networking with, you got some even bigger issues. By your logic I should also not get upset if I get locked out of my email account, since that too is a freebie offered by a company making money on advertising.

The linked article quotes a Google spokesperson that the services impacted are, all told:

Google+, Buzz, and some social features of Reader and Picasa Web Albums. For example, on Buzz, you can't create content, on Reader you can't share items with other users or follow other users, and on Picasa Web Albums you can't comment on photos.

In both scenarios, downgrading from Google+ will have no effect on other Google services like Gmail, Docs, etc.[emphasis mine]

I'can stand the google bundle, IFF I can be a separate entity to each part.

Therefore, I'm looking for a) a browser with a good cookiemanager or b) a "view 10-50 different browser processes as a tabbed browser".
b) Here I can start several different instances with their own profile, fully sandboxed by the OS (I hope)
a) Something that provides the same, but without me needing a new beefy computer.

[Google CEO Eric Schmidt] replied by saying that G+ was build primarily as an identity service, so fundamentally, it depends on people using their real names if they're going to build future products that leverage that information.

Straight from the horse's mouth:You are the product, not the consumer.

Google has always admitted to data mining your information, even your emails.
Best part is, it is self defeating. Googles anti-spam is one of the best, ad block plus helps with the rest.
You are crying over spilled milk, get a sponge....

[Google CEO Eric Schmidt] replied by saying that G+ was build primarily as an identity service, so fundamentally, it depends on people using their real names if they're going to build future products that leverage that information.

Straight from the horse's mouth:.

Except for celebrities (Lady Gag, 50 Cent,etc) who are allowed to use their fake names. And in the ultimate ironic hypocracy, the person in charge of G+ and responsible for the real name policy is Vic Gundrota. Whose is real name is not Vic, it is Vivek.

Yes, but when I bought my Nexus One, I pretty quickly decided that I hated the UI and ditched it for Cyanogenmod. Which I was able to do with instructions provided by Google itself.

I think that Google providing the specific instructions to unlock the phone is a pretty good reason to buy the phone. Just don't be stupid and get a phone which can't be easily unlocked in an approved way.

Straight from the horse's mouth:You are the product, not the consumer.

No. Your HABITS are the product. Google is a marketing machine and they sell insight into current, past and future trends in various groups, and for that they need to follow people's habits. That insight is their product. Google however does not sell people; you cannot buy information on any specific person from Google.

Besides, how is this news? Wasn't it obvious already from before? Did you think Google has trees that sprout cash every spring so they can keep on offering completely free services to people without Google going bankrupt? ALL similar free services monitor their users for anything relevant and share portions of that data forth, Google is in no way an exception or "the one, evil megacorporation out there to suck out your soul" or anything like that.

As long as Google doesn't sell specific people out and anonymize their data I personally couldn't care less, I'm getting hugely useful services without losing anything and I'm going to continue using them.

Google however does not sell people; you cannot buy information on any specific person from Google.

And hence, they should have no need to tag and track anything about any specific person. Except, they do, and they do need to. Because they sell data about trends within communities of people. So they're in the business of mining subcultures. They want to know 'what is cool' quick enough to be able to rip it off and commercialize it as soon as possible.

Would it be too much to ask for people, when submitting a story, to keep their bias out of it and let us form our own opinion. If you want to voice your _opinion_, save it for the comments section. Let's leave story summaries to, you know, summaries.

This summary couldn't have been more obviously anti-Google biased if it tried. It's utterly tedious trying to stay informed about geek news while being bombarded with such overwhelming biases. Its annoying in the comments section, but that's where I expect to see it.

Right, because Slashdot hasn't been vehemently pro-Google nearly all the time for the last ten years. I'm curious if you wave your finger at story submissions that are biased against Microsoft or Apple, because there sure are a hell of a lot of those that get posted.

I think the community can handle some needed Google criticism to keep things fair.

Google has admitted that deleting a G+ account will seriously downgrade your other Google services.

From the article

In both scenarios, downgrading from Google+ will have no effect on other Google services like Gmail, Docs, etc.

So the article is at complete opposites with the posted summary. Did the OP just link to the article because they thought more links would increase the chance of story acceptance, or were they deliberately trying to mislead?

Statements from Google which are on record and verifiable, versus anecdotal evidence of what happened to some undefined person. I somehow think I'm going to choose to believe Google on this one.

The current side effects of a Google Profile suspension, with confirmations by Google staff in various G+ posts, are:

The Profile is removed from public view.

Existing Google+, Google Buzz, and Google Reader shared items/posts are removed from view (whether they were originally public or limited).

Access to Google+ is blocked (more correctly, limited to only viewing public posts).

Access to Google Buzz is blocked.

Access to Google Reader (not just its sharing features) is blocked.

...It's hard for me to find the confirmation right now, but there is _some_ effect against Picasa. I cannot remember the exact detail. I think (but cannot yet confirm) that it removes public albums from public view.

Any other side effects reported until now have been labeled bugs and were not experienced by everyone consistently. Of particular note, a Profile suspension currently does NOT (modulo reappearing bugs?):

block access to Gmail, Google Voice, or any other top-level service;

block or unsubscribe from Google Groups;

force the use of Google 2-factor authentication (which would entail providing an identifiable phone number);

prevent the use of Google Checkout (or by extension, prevent the purchase of Android apps);

prevent the use of Android features unrelated to the three major services mentioned (+, Buzz, Reader).

So that's the state of the world today. Whether it stays that way is up to debate, and I posited that question in my post [google.com] that clarified the name policies as being an artifact of Profiles (including a reference proving that users can be banned without even having access to Google+ to begin with).

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, and our "citation" is to a Google+ status update. Not an article. Not even a blog post. A status update. The conclusions from this summary don't even follow the post that was linked. This is just... bad.

Every time a post about G+ or Facebook pops up I am reminded of the good old days of IRC when you could socialize with your friends without going through an evil multinational corporation.I can't even count the number of friends that I don't talk to anymore only because they abandoned IRC, or even real life get-togethers, for Facebook (and G+).

The way to think about this is that G+ is part of a very long list of things that people can do together using Google tools and services. It's the part of the system that identifies a person as a person ('identity service'), really the linchpin of the whole system of person-to-person networking. The "social" uses of this are but one application of the identity service.

Obviously there needs to be real people tied to these accounts, they're not worth anything if they're fake people or pets. Facebook regularly deletes profiles it deems are not "real", too.

At the end of the day, share what you are comfortable with. It's not like this is Google Mortgage we're talking about, or Google Driver's License. There is no one standing over anyone's shoulder screaming "YOU WILL USE GOOGLE AND YOU WILL LIKE IT!" Google sells information about you...everybody sells information about

Firstly, is the first source reputable? I never heard of Andy Carvin. Why is he the only one reporting it?

Secondly, the reasons which are given are silly:

"so fundamentally, it depends on people using their real names if they're going to build future products that leverage that information. "

Google has my Gmail. So it already knows my name. When people who know me send me emails, they generally use my name. If you use it as a primary email and send your CV to companies - then they potentially have a crapton

Regarding people who are concerned about their safety, he said G+ is completely optional. No one is forcing you to use it.

Exactly right.

Google may have started as a couple of college students creating a search engine and Facebook may have started as a couple of college students creating a social networking web site. But those days a long gone. Google and Facebook are not in the search or social networking business, they are in the ADVERTISING business. Their business model is now one thing and one thing only: collecting as much personal information about you as they can so they can sell it to advertisers.

If you really seriously have a problem with this, then DON'T FUCKING USE THEM. Seriously, how hard is that to figure out.

Google has to be very careful for the next two years, because of the terms of their non-prosecution deal with the Justice Department over the drug ads issue. [googlemonitor.com] This is the one where Google management had to admit criminal guilt and pay $500 million dollars. For the next two years, if Google does anything out of line in the drug-ad area, DOJ can, at their sole discretion, bring felony criminal charges for Google's past actions. Read that agreement between Google and DOJ. Nobody signs something like that unless going to trial would be much worse.

Peter Neronha, the U. S. attorney who headed the prosecution, issued a statement yesterday. [mainjustice.com] He says that "Larry Page knew what was going on. We know it from the investigation. We simply know it from the documents we reviewed, witnesses that we interviewed, that Larry Page knew what was going on". He went on to say that "this is not two or three rogue employees at the customer service level doing this on their own. This was a corporate decision to engage in this conduct.", and called Google's attempts to control the problem "window dressing".

Wow, we really are jumping to the worst today. Deleting your G+ account does not downgrade anything else. If your account is suspended it will, at least until the suspension is resolved. That's why I deleted my G+ account, I wasn't prepared to put my real name on it, and I didn't want my other services (Blogger, Picasa, Calendar etc) to be affected. Deletion != suspension. I wish at least the submitter would RTFA.

I'm seeing a lot of comments that if people don't like Google's policies, they shouldn't use Google. However, with Google's domination over Internet searching and over public email, it takes a fair amount of work to avoid using Google. And given the degree of social influence Google has attained, it really seems that the proper thing to do about a problem with Google's policies is to confront Google about it, not just run away and hide.

There was an email bulletin from the Free Software Foundation, complaining that 50% of their subscribers used Gmail. Outside work, almost all the personal email addresses I see in use are @gmail.com. On Slashdot, I'm used to frequent criticisms of Google, lauding of do-it-yourself system configuration, and lots of nerd rage whenever "cloud computing" comes up, so I found the reaction to Ask Slashdot: Self-Hosted Gmail Alternatives? astonishing, in that most of the responses were that the poster should stick with Google Apps for mail hosting, because self-hosting was too difficult. (I had been suggesting to my partner that I thought we should consider running our own mail server on our own Linux box, so I was reading that thread closely. I wouldn't have expected the Slashdot crowd to talk me out of it, but they did.)

At first, I liked the looks of Google+, because it seemed to show more planning to meet privacy concerns; however, the "real names" policy is a serious problem. If anybody's in a position to effectively challenge Facebook, a service I loathe, it's Google.

Some people throw around the claim that social networking services are not a necessity. The problem is, the definition of "necessity" is a social construction, human existence is social existence, and with social networking services, you're talking about the deliberate construction of a forum for constructing society. Opting out means a significant withdrawal from contemporary social life, especially for youth -- and this is a global pattern. It's more important when one looks at political developments around the world, of which Google is distinctly aware.

Opting out of Google services and ignoring the problem is not an effective response.

Why are we glossing over companies like Oracle, Microsoft, Apple, Lodsys.... who do actual evil, anti-competitive shit and troll Google not because of what they've done, but because of what they might hypothetically do according to someone's blog post?

Not saying they're saints, but compared to the alternatives they pretty much are.

It's kind of sad, but the evidence is getting stronger and stronger that capitalism is worse for the average person than communism, in spite of the failure of the USSR (which likely would not have occurred if not for the arms race pressure with the USA).

Gosh, Communism sure has worked out well everywhere else. You're obviously right. Communist policies such as taking land from farmers and parceling it out to the Common People who didn't know how or have any desire to farm were absolutely sound ideas, that only failed because of EVIL MEAN CAPITALISM!

<devil's advocate>
Ah yes, cos China's doing such a terrible job economically. I mean they're only the second largest economy in the world
</devil's advocate>

All of China's actual money comes directly from us and our evil capitalist society. The rest of their GDP is artificially inflated by meaningless public works projects such as building gigantic malls or housing complexes that today sit there unoccupied because nobody can afford to use them... but the mere construction of them inflates their GDP so their currency and government will look stronger than it is.

Yes, China is doing a terrible job economically because the government controls everything and nobody

Even if their "actual money" comes from us (which is pure bullshit), their "actual wealth" comes from their labor. China still understands something that the US has forgotten: that labor always precedes capital, not the other way around. A stick lying on the ground isn't worth nearly as much as that stick carved into a beautiful cane.

The world doesn't need all that many software engineers or investment bankers. By blindly and foolishly destroying our labor-based economy, crushing unions, putting supply over demand, we've given away our seed corn and have thrown our national wealth away. Almost every one of you who are pre-retirement are losing ground, but you're too proud and too scared to admit it.

And the one hope that the US has of trying to turn it around is going to be discarded thanks to the sudden concern about deficits. Government austerity here in the US is going to work about as well here in the US as it has in Europe. It is impossible to turn around a downward trend by "shrinking government".

Yes, China is doing a terrible job economically because the government controls everything and nobody has a chance at an independent means of success. Everybody who is successful has the government's hand firmly up their ass... except those who are the most successful, and they have their hand up the government's.

You have obviously not been to China in the past decade, nor have you ever spoken to a Chinese businessman.

but the mere construction of them inflates their GDP so their currency and government will look stronger than it is.

Do you know that the same thing was said about the public works projects of the New Deal? They turned out to herald the greatest period of widespread growth and prosperity in US history. Here in the US, we're destroying our own prosperity and economic well-being for the benefit of a few powerful corporate groups. China is not only going to pass the US by economically, but in 25 years it will be superior socially and culturally too. But only if they can resist the pressure from the same corporate oligarchs that have just about finished destroying America.

You can punish capitalists; the U.S. does it all the time. Hell, Google just paid the feds $500 million. Communism creates a gigantic, centralized government that's above the law, has no incentive to improve because it doesn't have to compete for money (its income is taken at gunpoint--just try not paying your taxes or showing up to court and see what happens), and is extremely difficult to overthrow if needed.

It's funny seeing people arguing for either Capitalism or Communism without mentioning democracy.

Emphasizing democracy would mean neither capital (wealth) or a state bureaucracy would be as likely to control the state. The principle would be the well being of the people. Ignoring democracy makes the argument over Capitalism and Communism fairly meaningless.They are both just ways of gaining power over the people.

Perhaps you think the U.S. is a democracy? My subjective answer would be not as much as

You think those guys on the side of the road with the orange jumpsuits have a choice about what they're doing? Or the ones making license plates, etc?

Yes. They do. All of them volunteered for that work because it gives them something to do. In fact, they are on waiting lists for MONTHS trying to score those gigs. It gives them a little money (usually a couple dollars an hour I think), some jobs even teach valuable skills for use when they get out, and most of all it gives them something to do.

That's the opposite of volunteering. Like if I hold a gun to your head, and say 'work or I'll kill you'... if you volunteer that's not a choice. Neither is it a choice if I offer to torture you or let you 'volunteer' to work. Neither is it a choice if I offer to put you in a box for the day, or work.

No, a choice would be: come out to the open road. There you can work, or not.

What the hell? Nobody's holding guns to anybody's head. Nobody's forcing the prisoners to work. They committed crimes and now they're in prison. They can either sit around in prison and do nothing or they can get a prison job and get a break from the ordinary. They do it entirely by choice. They're not in prison by choice, but they have the choice of making their stay more enjoyable.

FYI: Prison is a correctional system. It's a punishment for wrongdoing. It's also a rehabilitation for wrongdoers. Giving them choices about how they want to spend their time is a part of rehabilitation and assessment of whether or not they're fit to re-enter society. Nobody is forcing them to work, and they are free to hang out in the yard and lift weights for the next 10 years if they want, or they can do something different.

That's the opposite of volunteering. Like if I hold a gun to your head, and say 'work or I'll kill you'... if you volunteer that's not a choice. Neither is it a choice if I offer to torture you or let you 'volunteer' to work. Neither is it a choice if I offer to put you in a box for the day, or work.

That's not what's happening. You're not getting tortured if you don't choose to work, you simply remain in prison. Yes, you may argue that being imprisoned is torture, but the people working are still imprisoned.

No, a choice would be: come out to the open road. There you can work, or not.

C'mon...I'm the first to admit that we imprison far too many people for victimless crimes, especially with all the drug laws. That said, by your definition it's impossible to not be a slave. I can work or not, but if I choose not to work I won't have money to pay for shelter and food. In a sens

You think those guys on the side of the road with the orange jumpsuits have a choice about what they're doing? Or the ones making license plates, etc?

Where in the world do you get this stuff from? The Internet???
I worked in the prison systems and very few states have mandatory prisoner work rules.
I would say 98% of the inmates work only because they like money and privileges that come with working.
I know where I worked kitchen inmates ate better than non kitchen workers.
I know that the industry workers made twice what any others made.
I know that a ton of inmates refuse to work and sit and watch TV all day too.
Most work because they want to.

Or their crime was complaining about the long lines in the grocery store. Or having a "nice" apartment that their neighbor wanted. Or just happening to be at a wrong place when a KGB official needed to have his quota fulfilled. Or having the wrong nationality or speaking the wrong language. Or fighting against nazism on the wrong front. Or having a distant relative who escaped to the west. And comparing the conditions in US prison system (arguably rather horrible, I agree with that) with concentration c

You can interpret it any positive way you want, but the point is that someone at Google finally admitted the true purpose of Google+. To many people, this isn't a big deal, but the Slashdot community has spent years portraying Google as a selfless open source company that does no evil. Since many here have stated their dislike of Facebook's privacy problems and cited that as a reason for using Google+, it's relevant to hear from Eric Schmidt himself that Google+ is data bait for a global megacorp's advertis

Who fucking cares? Some slut with a bunch of emo myspace pictures(check wiki) is offended that Google cancelled her account on their private service.

First then they came for sluts with a bunch of emo myspace pictures, and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a slut with a bunch of emo myspace pictures.

Then then they came for slashdot posters who didn't like sluts with a bunch of emo myspace pictures, and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a slashdot poster who didn't like sluts with a bunch of emo myspace p

Probably at around the time social networking sites became many people's main method of communication. Most forms of social justice activism require involving other people, and it's not as though you can control what method the people you want to communicate with choose to make themselves available through...

There seems to be a concerted effort to spew paranoia about Google lately. I recently listened to an interview with Scott Cleland about his book: 'Why You Can't Trust Google'. The whole thing reeked of a hit job. Mostly just imagining the worst possible implications of every 'questionable' thing Google does. But some out and out conspiracy theorizing too.

He describes how Google has 'copies of the entire web' as if there's any other way to provide the kind of search they provide. And somehow Bing (which, after all, is a direct clone of Google's business model) doesn't have such copies, or somehow has more benign plans for them.

He ranted on about how Android tracks your location. At least in this case, a caller noted that that's optional, but in any case, what about the iPhone?

He painted the 'wifi monitoring' scandal as if it were intended for sniffing your dirty laundry instead of to log wifi locations (as others have done) in order to build a triangulation system to augment GPS location.

Hell, there are folks right here ranting that Google's evil because they don't give away their core software - only millions of lines of other very useful stuff, but hey, evil is evil. And that kind of rant is nuts.

Make no mistake, Google's got lots of info. And they use it to sell targeted advertising. But, so far at least, they're not selling your identity to anyone (I'm not even sure they have your identity if all you use them for is search. And if they are building an identity service, there's still no indication that they plan to put it to evil purposes. I believe they're pretty clear about what they will and will not do with the info they have. But if they decided to go all evil one day, I guess that could be a problem. And never underestimate the potential for incompetence in maintaining all that info securely. So, start lobbying your govt stooges to get some privacy legislation. Still, no reason to act as if everything Google does has nefarious motives. More and more, I'm inclined to assign those motives to whoever is funding these backdoor attacks.

I find posts like yours amusing. Google has received near-constant stream of positive coverage on Slashdot and other sites for years, yet a few recent articles pointing out legitimate criticism is suddenly a "concerted effort to spew paranoia." You call other people nuts, but you should think about how your own post is coming off. There has been Google of criticism for as long as they've existed (I remember when Google's tracking cookie was a big deal), so it's not even a new thing, but because of so many h

There's nothing hamfisted about it.. people just don't understand that they have no right to demand Google make their products the way *they* want them to be. You don't pay them.. they don't owe you shit. If you don't like their free service then don't fucking use it.

If anything, they're guilty of being too politically correct. They should be just telling the whiners to fuck off.